This website is dedicated to Tiffany Lin, a bright, beautiful, and loving 27-year old daughter, sister, and friend that was just shy of graduating from the Optometry program at Nova Southeastern University. Unfortunately for our world, Tiffany passed in her own bedroom on March 2, 2015 surrounded by her loved ones.
Tiffany’s story started off in July of 2014 with minor headaches that she attributed to her impacted wisdom teeth due to the way the head pain radiated down to her jaw. However, the headaches persisted after recovering from the removal of her wisdom teeth and she started to notice a small bump on the left side of her head.
CT and MRI scans revealed a small tumor on the left side of her head and she was promptly referred to a neurosurgeon, Dr. Badih Adada at the Cleveland Clinic. During the visit, Tiffany and her father were told by Dr. Adada that the mass on the side of her head was an eosinophilic glioblastoma, a benign tumor that could easily be removed without any further complications. He assured Tiffany and her father that this was NOT cancer and that we had nothing to worry about. As such, an appointment was made for his next available surgery two weeks later on 8/27/14.
We were all relieved to hear that the mass was benign. In hindsight, we all questioned the idea of how Dr. Adada knew that the tumor in the scan was benign without performing a biopsy, but we were assured by him that it was because he has seen and operated on so many of them. He was wrong.
During those two weeks that Dr. Adada had Tiffany wait, the tumor slowly grew and she continued to complain about the headaches. When the time came, she noticed a swollen lymph node on the left side on her neck, but Dr. Adada did not think anything of it nor the growth of the tumor. After the operation, he informed Tiffany’s family and friends that the tumor was aggressive and that we would need to see an oncologist. Why did Dr. Adada continue with the operation after seeing that he was wrong and that the tumor was aggressive?
This would then begin the painfully excruciating journey through our broken healthcare system that will be continued in follow up articles.
During those two weeks of waiting, Tiffany mentioned that Dr. Adada was successfully sued over 10 years ago for operating on the wrong side of a young person’s head. Being the kindhearted and forgiving person that Tiffany has always been, she decided that it was not a big deal and that people make mistakes. Unfortunately, Dr. Badih Adada made another mistake, one that costed Tiffany her life.
The following are some articles you can find about the lawsuit:
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southcentral/2012/12/17/274239.htm
http://dbjlaw.net/all-results/all/20-million-awarded-for-04-surgery-error
http://www.claimsjournal.com/news/southcentral/2010/09/27/113575.htm
How many lives does Dr. Adada have to ruin before his medical license is revoked?